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There are more reasons to ban gas in buildings than just global warming. There's the fact that you are actually burning fuel, which released noxious fumes into
by cogman10 4y ago
There are more reasons to ban gas in buildings than just global warming.
There's the fact that you are actually burning fuel, which released noxious fumes into the home [1]. There's mounting evidence that this sort of exposure has pretty negative health implications [2]
Gas is also inherently dangerous, more-so than electricity. There's been more than a few examples of exploded homes/buildings due to gas leaks [3]. All it takes is for someone to accidentally leave a burner on unstarted (or for a kid to do it while playing around the home).
But as for cooking, heat pumps won't work there. What you're more likely to see is either homes coming standard with thick enough lines to power everything or stoves with batteries (think about it, a stove is off 90% of the time, so why not slowly charge a battery during that time for the times when you need to cook fast?)
[1] https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.1c04707 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.1c04707
[2] https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxfaqs/tfacts175.pdf https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxfaqs/tfacts175.pdf
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronan_Point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronan_Point
- annexrichmond 4y agoWhy can’t people make safety decisions for themselves? Many people will choose electric/induction stoves, or not rent an apartment with a gas stove. But many people do prefer it, and I don’t think it should be up to you or the government whether something is “good” for them or not.
- idontpost 4y ago[dead]
- hdisjdudh 4y agomany people will rent and have no say on what's better for them
- annexrichmond 4y agoI’ve searched for apartments many times in my life, and both options were always plentiful. If it’s important enough to someone they will have a say.
- newZWhoDis 4y agoUnfortunately we crossed that bridge a long time ago…
- CydeWeys 4y agoMost people in NYC rent, and there are many other considerations to make when picking an apartment to move into besides what kind of stove it has. You're often taking what you can get. This law will mean that, going forward, there will be more apartments available that don't have air-quality-destroying gas stoves, meaning there'll be more suitable places for people to pick from. Also, as the other commenter said, these are apartment buildings. If you burn your apartment down it's gonna affect your neighbors. If you mess up your indoor air quality it's gonna affect your neighbors.
- annexrichmond 4y agoSurely there are other ways to incentivize non gas stoves than outright banning it in all new buildings.
- heatmiser 4y agoTo what end?
- iamdamian 4y agoThis regulation unfortunately targets the entire state of New York and includes not just NYC renters but also home owners.
- Eric_WVGG 4y agoAll kinds of reasons. Besides widespread societal misinformation going back to the tobacco lobbyist days, a five-year-old cannot express a preference not to inhale toxic fumes.
- arijun 4y agoDo you have the same opinion on fire escapes? After all, it should be my choice to endanger myself so I can pay a little less in rent.
- annexrichmond 4y agoAnd who is protesting the existence of fire escapes? Since my argument was about freedom of choice, that couldn’t be more of a false equivalence.
- TaylorAlexander 4y agoThe briefest of search finds a page claiming that landlords opposed fire escape regulation when it was introduced, as it was costly and supposedly unattractive. I would not be surprised if some of them argued for freedom of choice in the matter. https://americacomesalive.com/the-invention-of-the-fire-escape/ https://americacomesalive.com/the-invention-of-the-fire-esca...
- the_gastropod 4y agoFor one reason, your decision to use a gas stove affects all the people who live within proximity of you. Everyone’s air quality could be affected, and everyone’s risk of carbon monoxide poisoning increases, and everyone’s risk of fire increases. No one is an island.
- pathartl 4y agoI think they're missing the point that the ban is for New York. You know, one of the most densely populated areas in the country?
- HWR_14 4y agoBecause in an apartment building your neighbor's apartment being on fire has a high degree of correlation to if your apartment catches on fire (or gets smoke/water damage).
- kllrnohj 4y agoHow do you effectively mandate that those building owners are maintaining their gas lines and ensuring they aren't leaking? This is where it stops being "personal responsibility" Also you personally can still have gas anyway, you just don't get government subsidized gas infrastructure anymore. Go get your own propane tank or whatever. Go be "personally independent"
- dschuler 4y agoNewer gas stoves turn off automatically when they don’t detect a flame, but I’ve only seen those in Europe so far.
- amluto 4y agoI’ve never seen one in the US. In general, gas stoves here are low quality, poorly made, and often very expensive. Fancy ones are shinier but no better.
- AdamJacobMuller 4y agoMy Bosch stove does this. It runs the igniter continuously when it doesn't detect a flame and if you do something to preclude the ignitor from working (I was testing something, don't ask), the gas flow stops after about 15 seconds!
- SoftTalker 4y agoHow many homes have burned down because of faulty wiring for electric stoves vs the number that have exploded due to leaking gas stoves?
- cogman10 4y ago286 from gas appliances [1] 24,000 for all electrical fires. [2] I wasn't able to find specifically fires caused by electric stoves. Most are caused by faulty wiring, lights, and space heaters. My assumption, stoves are not often involved in electric fires. They have isolated, grounded circuits that you aren't frequently plugging and unplugging into. The thinker cables usually have thicker insulation on top of that. [1] https://www.millerweisbrod.com/preventing-gas-explosions#:~:text=Natural%20Gas%20Explosion%20Prevention,injury%2C%20or%20loss%20of%20life https://www.millerweisbrod.com/preventing-gas-explosions#:~:.... [2] https://www.firerescue1.com/fire-products/firefightingtools/articles/5-common-causes-of-electrical-fires-olFt6TUMOsWg7re2/ https://www.firerescue1.com/fire-products/firefightingtools/...
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y agoAlso, contemporary induction stoves don't actually get "hot", at least for a stove top. They do have quite a lot of electricity flowing, however, so shorts etc. could potentially be bad. They seem rather unlikely, however.
- kllrnohj 4y agoGFCI was already made mandatory in all kitchens nationally. The 2023 code updates expanded and strengthened the requirements here
- robocat 4y agoHere’s a house that was turned to kindling by a gas explosion: http://www.nzpdg.org.nz/news/details/cause-revealed-of-gas-explosion-.html http://www.nzpdg.org.nz/news/details/cause-revealed-of-gas-e... https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/114388788/gas-contractor-who-worked-on-exploding-house-very-stressed https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/114388788/gas-contractor-wh... “[the gas fitter] had not isolated the gas supply to the fire he was part-way through repairing, and he failed to tell the residents not to turn the main gas supply back on”. Of course you would want to analyse the relative risks of gas versus electricity.
- stefan_ 4y agoThis might be the problem with this discussion on HN, there are people here who earnestly believe we will need batteries in them to power simple electric induction cooktops.
- TaylorAlexander 4y agoThese products do exist, and while the price is still high I do like the idea. Then you can do high power cooking with a more modest electrical draw, because the stove draws high power from its local batteries and charges them more slowly via a wall outlet. This allows installation even when high power wiring is not available.
- seanmcdirmid 4y agoInduction cooktops generally require 220-40 outlets, so I get that a battery might be a way around that, I doubt it would work for code however. A household battery made out of old Tesla batteries sounds like a good idea, but I think someone has thought of it.
- kllrnohj 4y agoIf those batteries are too old/weak to effectively power a car how useful are they going to be at powering a household stove? Especially when why would you need such a thing anyway when you have 220v+ just itching to get the job done directly from the grid? The grid needs power storage, yes, but there's all sorts of solutions to that beyond lithium ion batteries including water & stone gravity storage systems. Or just centralized batteries.
- seanmcdirmid 4y agoThat really isn’t how it works. They hold less charge, but you can have more of them and weight isn’t really an issue. They can also charge more gradually, making the dynamics really different. A battery bank at home can be a good solution to grid balancing, eg if power is cheaper during the day or night, or if you have solar. Water storage systems aren’t very efficient and need lots of space, but there are people who do it. You can also compress air into a cave. Batteries are just something that are cheaper and more space efficient than other solutions. Centralized batteries work as well, though they don’t do anything if you have lots of grid failures.